Iowa archaeological dig unearths echoes of World War I

May 28, 2014
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Pat Hashman digs the earth as his colleagues from Wapsi Valley Archeology, Owen Reese and Anrea Einck, sift through a load of soil on Wednesday while they all work in a recently discovered World War I-era training trench at Camp Dodge. / Charlie Litchfield, The Des Moines Register

by William Petroski, The Des Moines Register

by William Petroski, The Des Moines Register

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Deep amid hackberry, elm and black locust trees in a remote area rarely traversed by modern Iowa soldiers, some vestiges of World War I remain at Camp Dodge, where thousands of troops prepared for battle on Europe's Western Front.

As French infantry officers already hardened by combat watched and shouted instructions, fresh-faced American soldiers dug trenches in the snow at the Iowa base, starting in November 1917. Wearing broad-brimmed campaign hats, they trained with Enfield rifles with bayonets attached, firing blank .30-caliber cartridges and throwing dummy hand grenades.

Nearly a century later, the long-forgotten trenches are the site of an archaeological dig at the Johnston, Iowa, military installation. About 130,000 U.S. soldiers were assigned between 1917 and 1919 to Camp Dodge, which was one of 16 major Army training sites during World War I.

"This is a snapshot of time of what we were doing then as a nation," says Col. Gregory Hapgood Jr., public affairs officer for the Iowa National Guard. "This is our legacy. You have to understand where you have been to know where you are going. This is a piece of where we have been."

After just a few days of work, a crew from Iowa-based Wapsi Valley Archaeology has examined an entire complex of World War I training trenches at Camp Dodge, including zigzag trenches used at the front of a combat area, along with other trenches designed specifically for communications, supplies, and other purposes.

Over time, most of the trenches - which were originally about 7-feet deep - have gradually become more shallow as they have filled with soil. But some are still deep enough they could provide protection if bullets were flying overhead.

In addition, a host of artifacts has been unearthed, including World War I-era ammunition casings, an unarmed hand grenade, a suppressor for a machine gun, barbed wire, an old glass medicine bottle and other items.

"For military folks who are historians, this is kind of like finding gold," said Jamie Conley, a civilian specialist in geographic information systems for the Iowa National Guard who has worked on the trench project.

It's long been known that training trenches existed at Camp Dodge during World War I, but officials hadn't determined precisely where they were located, said Mike Vogt, curator of the Iowa Gold Star Museum. So geographic information system maps, along with a 1919 site plan of the training area, and aerial photographs were combined to discover features that gave Camp Dodge officials some strong clues of where the trenches could be found.

The first phase of the archaeological project, funded by $10,000 from the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C., concludes this week. Further excavation could occur in the future and the World War I trenches could eventually be placed on the National Register of Historic Places, said Mary Jones, an environmental specialist with the Iowa Guard.

At least two other World War I training sites, at Camp Shelby, Miss., and Camp Upton, N.Y., have evaluated their trench complexes. Surveys and excavations are also occurring in Europe on training trenches and those used in combat from 1914-1918 because of the upcoming anniversary of the war.

The Camp Dodge trenches are on a 5-acre site north of a weapons training area that's normally closed to the public, and which has sometimes been under water when nearby Beaver Creek flooded.

At the time of World War I, the trench area was just west of a set of tracks used by the Inter-Urban Railway, which ran a line between Perry and Des Moines. Prior to the war, the land appears to have been an open field. But after the war, many of the buildings at Camp Dodge were dismantled and sold for surplus, and the trench training area became overgrown with trees and other foliage.

Camp Dodge totaled about 5,200 acres at the time of World War I. It was also used during World War II when thousand of troops were inducted into the military there. Camp Dodge now covers about 4,400 acres and serves as the headquarters of the Iowa National Guard, as well as the site of the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, a military entrance processing station, and other military facilities.